Siri Mitchell - Chateau of Echoes

He caught me near the garden and began to walk beside me, fitting his stride to mine. “There was a call for you while you were out.”

I glanced at him. He looked scholarly in a pair of chocolate wide-wale corduroys and a cardigan. “You don’t have to answer the phone.”

He shrugged. “I was in the kitchen.”

Doing who knows what. “Who was it?”

“Some people looking for a room.”

“I’ll call them back this afternoon. I’m probably booked.”

“I found your booking calendar and there was no one scheduled, so I booked them for you.”

That brought me to a halt so fast I almost fell over. “You what?!”

“I booked them. Two couples, two rooms. I even remembered to ask for their credit card numbers.” He looked supremely satisfied with himself.

“First of all, Cranwell, it’s not your job to answer the phone for me. Sévérine does that. Second, it’s not your place to book rooms for me.” I hadn’t been that angry in years.

“I looked in your schedule and you don’t have anyone coming until after Christmas.”

“That’s because I don’t want anyone. I refuse most of the people who call.”

“That’s not any way to run a business, Freddie.” The louder I responded, the quieter Cranwell became.

“It’s my business. I like it this way. I need solitude.”

Lucy had clamped her ears to her head and was crouching close to the ground.

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange to be refusing guests when you run an inn?”

His mild tone infuriated me, but I could think of nothing to say.

He snapped a finger at Lucy, and she stood up, rolling her eyes toward the forest, looking eager to get away. They had started for the trees when he stopped and turned around. “By the way, I forgot to take down their phone number. You can’t call them back to cancel. Sorry.”

I was steaming when I resumed my walk. The worst of it was that my calves had cramped while I’d stopped to argue with Cranwell. I spent a good five minutes stretching them out against the chateau’s wall. By then, even zipping my black jogging fleece up to my neck failed to keep me warm.

Taking a deep breath, I held it for ten seconds and looked up at the steel gray clouds. I saw a flock of hirondelles , sparrows, heading south. Their cries skirled across the sky and echoed in my ears, reminding me that fall was upon us. Which meant that winter would soon arrive. The chill that tinged the air would only get worse.

Clapping my glove-clad hands together for warmth, I jogged around to the front door.

“I’m sorry, Freddie. I thought I was doing you a favor, and I can tell now that I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to infringe on your territory.”

At least Cranwell had apologized before I served dinner. Now I would be able to enjoy the food. I washed my hands and wiped them on my twill pants and tugged on the long sleeves of my lagoon blue U-neck sweater to pull them back down. Then I served him a thick slice of paté de lapin aux noisettes before I answered.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you.” I set a plate down for myself and broke a crisp baguette in two, handing half to him. Then I took my place on my stool. “After Peter died, this was my sanctuary. It still is. I’m redefining my place in the world, and I like to do it at my own pace.”

“I can understand that. It’s what I’m doing too. Redefining myself as a Christian. This is a sort of sanctuary for me too.”

We ate in silence for several minutes, savoring the rabbit and hazelnut spread. “I don’t take many guests.” I didn’t reveal to him my decision mechanism. It sounded juvenile even to me.

“Nothing wrong with that. If you had too many, you wouldn’t be able to pay individual attention to me.” He winked at me.

I wrinkled my nose at him.

“So what was Peter like?”

“Blond. Blue-eyed.”

“I mean, what kind of a person was he?”

“At least give me some place to start, Cranwell.”

“What did he want out of life?”

“He wanted to be the head of his agency.”

“That’s it?”

“It? Cranwell, that’s like saying, ‘I want to be the president.’ Very few people get to that point in their careers.”

“What did you want out of life?”

Why did Cranwell have to be so nosy? “For Peter to be the head of his agency. I was a good wife.”

“I’m not saying you weren’t.”

“He would have made a good executive. He was smart. He worked hard. People listened to him. He was a natural leader.”

“What attracted you to him?”

“He knew what he wanted from life. And because he knew where he was going, I didn’t have to. He had everything planned. When you met him, you knew it would all work out. And he made you want to be around when it did.”

“Where would you be if he were still alive?”

“Belgium? Switzerland? Morocco? Côte d’Ivoire? Somewhere in French-speaking Europe or Africa. And after, we would have gone back to DC.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I just can’t see you living that sort of life.”

“I was good at it. We entertained a lot; I enjoyed it. And I’m a patriot; I felt honored to serve my country as a diplomat’s wife. If life hadn’t turned itself upside down, I would still be doing it.”

After clearing away our plates, I portioned out the pintade aux figues sèches , a guinea fowl prepared with dried figs. I loved cooking with dried fruit. They always lent an earthy flavor to food. The fowl was cooked to perfection. As I carved, it fell away from the bone. I served it with buttered French-style macaroni sprinkled with chives.

I brought the plates to the table and then took my seat.

“So, are you happy here?”

Surprised at his question, I looked up at him from my food. “I’m very content. I like it here.”

He took a bite of pintade and chewed a moment before speaking. “This chateau suits you. Classic, but comfortable. Traditional, yet surprising. Welcoming, but guarded at the same time.”

“Thank you.” I ripped a piece of bread from my half of the baguette. “I think.”

“It was a compliment. You’re welcome. This is excellent. What’s in it?”

The next several minutes I spent explaining the recipe to him, realizing, over the course of our conversation, how good it felt to have someone to talk to. And someone to listen. Any lingering irritation from earlier in the day had vanished.

We savored our ginger-spiked pumpkin mousse and sipped espresso afterward.

The next weekend, I bought a fortune in game from local hunters. They brought venison, partridge, duck, rabbit, squirrel. The only thing I refused was pigeon. Pigeons don’t have gall bladders, and if not cooked to perfection, their meat can be tough and chewy. And worse, when it’s raw, the flesh is dark, almost purple. In contrast, I love squab, but I don’t cook it. Because squab are baby pigeons, just four weeks old. And that seems cruel. But for the most part, I try to keep ethics out of my kitchen.

Sunday evening I spent dressing the game and portioning it for freezing. I laid aside a nice rabbit to make lapin au moutarde and several squirrels and a hare to make a terrine .

I love fall. It’s my favorite season.

Cranwell’s guests came the next weekend. They weren’t very old, but I could tell they were well-connected. The French would have called them branché . Fashionable. Trendy. And I’m sure the only reason they wanted to stay at the inn was so they could brag to all their friends.

The two men I pegged right away as X-graduates. They had the same arrogant savoir faire as other graduates of Ecole Polytechnique that I had known from Embassy connections. As France’s premier engineering school, it was the most elite of the country’s elite schools. Graduates hired only other graduates, and even a diploma from Ecole Polytechnique with poor grades was more valuable than perfect scores from any other university.